


Peer Support

by Zombieheroine



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Bonding over trauma, Episode Related, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-26
Updated: 2013-09-26
Packaged: 2017-12-27 16:45:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/981256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zombieheroine/pseuds/Zombieheroine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of The Crossover, Major Kira and Dr. Bashir are left shaken and confused. It seems like they need each other's help if they want to move on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peer Support

**Author's Note:**

> I've always loved slice-of-life type of fiction, so here's my take on some stress recovery and bonding between Kira and Bashir.
> 
> Thank you Chakatai for betaing the first draft, and my roommate for finishing the job.

The warm lights illuminating the promenade of Deep Space Nine were a great comfort, like the bedroom light of a child's room turning the land of night terror back into a cozy nursery. Not that Kira would really know how that felt, since as long as she could remember it had been a lantern or a pale lightbulb in a cave that greeted her when she surfaced from a nightmare, and never a soft light of her own bedroom.  
Deep Space Nine and Terok Nor where nothing alike, and yet they were. They were two completely different places that existed on the same station, just not at the same time. Somehow, Deep Space Nine was home and Terok Nor was a death trap, and all the differences were made simply by the amount of light.

After returning from the another universe with Doctor Bashir, Kira had found herself with an old burden she had hoped to never have again: insomnia. In the past she had found ways to get some sleep regardless of the situation. During the occupation she had slept in caves, in alley-ways, tied to a branch of a tree, in a pit wrapped in a thin blanked, in the rain, you name it. She had used to take some quiet pride in her ability to shut down for a moment and scramble together some more energy, to trick her body beyond its limits and keep going, but something about the incident had taken that away from her.

Kira took glances on darkened shop windows as she wandered past them, but due to the lights of the Promenade, all she really saw was her own reflection. Her sleep-deprived mind partly expected to see her own face wearing a cruel smile and wink lewdly on the glass's surface, and even though nothing like that happened she could feel her skin crawl.  
A woman just like her was much further away than just in a mirror, and while Kira knew this, she hurried her steps and avoided any more reflective surfaces anyway.  
The face of Intendant didn't leave her mind that easily, nor did her voice, her laugh or her casual cruelty bordering madness. Kira pressed her mouth into a firm line and shook her head like she had used to do when she had needed to keep her cool and be either the fierce enemy or the courageous liberator her people were expecting. Even after the closure turning in her report on the incident had offered, she felt dirty and somehow violated, like the woman in another universe who just happened to look like her was somehow a part of her. Like someone had stolen her reflection or made a clone of her just so they could twist and mutilate it to their heart's content while throwing gazes at this Kira.

_Look what you could have been. Look what you are really capable of._

Kira scolded herself for thinking this way. The other universe had nothing to so with this one. It was only a bundle of coincidences that happened to resemble the same coincidences in their universe, and there were probably hundreds of thousands and more universes that all were different from each other, and more so by every step.

Kira shook her head again. She knew her practical physics but had never really cared for the philosophical aspects of the science, and this was not right time to get familiar with them.

She could use something for the insomnia, and taking advantage of the medical care that was available seemed like a good idea. The only thing that kept her from the Infirmary was Doctor Bashir. Kira really didn't feel like seeing him right now. The change was too dramatic; just a few days ago she had simply taken him for a naive, sheltered Federation doctor yet to have his first taste of real life, but now something had shifted between them. They had gone through something together, just the two of them, and Kira didn't feel ready to try yet how it affected their relationship.  
They would have to discuss it sooner or later, but for that conversation Kira needed a good night's sleep.

She tapped her combatch and said: ”Computer. Is Doctor Bashir on duty?”

”Doctor Bashir is not on duty. He will report to his post oh-seven -”  
”Thank you, computer,” Kira interrupted. She wasn't interested in when Doctor Bashir would be on duty, the only thing relevant was that he wasn't there right now. She headed towards the nearest turbolift and scolded herself for such cowardliness; delaying something rarely made anything easier, but now it couldn't be helped. She felt like she should be more brave and just dive in without looking, even though at the same time the rational part of her reminded her that this was not a battle one could just tear her way through, this was a delicate situation that requaired empathy, patience and a well-rested mind.

Another, meaner little nag in the back of her skull threw its two cents in and said it had been a while since she'd had to prove to herself she was brave instead of just knowing it and doing what had to be done. How much of it was the other universe to blame, she didn't know.

The trip to the infirmary was a quick and quiet one, and both qualities due to the night time with considerably less activity through the station than during the day. Under the dimmed night-lighting Kira came across only standard security patrols and a few other insomniacs. She knew there were traders and freighters on the station, but they were all working on the lower docking levels and cargo bays, and therefore were nowhere to be seen. Kira couldn't say she minded. Right now she felt she could go the rest of her life without ever even thinking about the working levels of Deep Space Nine.

The infirmary was empty of patients when Kira arrived there. There were three nurses on the night shift, and they all sat around a small round table each with a cup of tea or raktajino in hand or right next to them on the table. The dark-skinned Bajoran was teaching her human colleagues a Bajoran game with two six-sided dices and a deck of cards, and she was clearly enjoying her role as a teacher and the deeply concentrated faces of the two humans. They heard Kira approaching and lifted their gazes in sync so perfect it sent a chill down her spine. She realized she was more tired than she had imagined.

The Bajoran nurse got up. ”Major Kira!” she greeted as she approaced, checking her up and down looking for any visible reason for her to be there. ”What can I do for you?”  
Talking to another Bajoran was a comfort in itself, and Kira found herself smiling effortlessly despite her exhaustion. The nurse was an image of a traditional Bajoran healer with her big warm eyes, kind smile and her long dark hair in a braid, awake and vigilant despite the late hour. Kira even recognized the family sigil in her earring.  
”Well... I've had some trouble sleeping for some time,” she begun. ”Could you give me something that would help me fall asleep?”  
The nurse nodded empathically, and for a passing moment Kira wondered if Doctor Bashir had leaked to some of her nurses what had happened, and now they all knew and pitied her. She banished the thought as rootless paranoia.

”Yes, of course, Major,” the nurse answered, then turned and called back: ”Doctor! We have a patient!”

All comforting warmth the nurse had lit up in Kira washed away as she saw Doctor Bashir walking toward them from the back where he had been unseeable, apparently behind a computer console. Kira tensed up in a way she was sure was visible and felt a spark of irritation. He wasn't on duty, so why was he in the Infirmary in the first place? Her barely existing patience wore thinner and thinner, and she had to repress an unusually strong urge to snap something, turn around and storm off.

”Major Kira here complains about sleeping troubles,” the nurse filled the doctor in. The word 'complain' added some unnecessery fuel to the flames of irritation, and Kira shifted restlessly on her place.

A quick glance at Doctor Bashir made her forget her irritation for a moment. The doctor wasn't his usual neat and overconfident self, but a thin shadow of it. Kira had to take another look to be sure it was really the same man she had been on a shuttle with not even a week ago.

Bashir hadn't been sleeping well, it was obvious in the hunched shoulders, bruise-like shadows under his eyes and rapid blinking as he clearly fought to make his eyes focus. He wasn't wearing his uniform properly, but had lowered the upper part of the overalls and tied the sleeves to his waist and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. This only added up to his altogether unprofessional and scruffy image.

”Good night, Major,” Bashir greeted and brought Kira back to the present moment. She answered to the greeting by simply nodding, but he had already turned away and strolled towards the medicine cabinet. ”Thank you, nurse,” he called out to the Bajoran, who voiced her thanks, smiled to Kira and went back to her collegues around the table. Kira watched her back for a few seconds before slowly going after the doctor.

”So, troubles falling asleep or staying asleep?” Bashir asked when Kira stood a few steps from him.  
”I can't bring myself to go to bed at all,” she answered truthfully.  
”Stress?”  
”You should know,” Kira said with a sharp edge in her voice. Bashir barely glanced at her over his shoulder, snatched a medicine bottle from a shelf and turned to face her.  
”Yes, I do,” he sighed, turning the bottle around in his fingers. Kira expected him to hand it to her, give her instructions and put the awkward situation out of its misery by releasing her from the Infirmary, but instead he allowed the silence to go on, his eyes never leaving the glass bottle. For a moment Kira actually wondered if the doctor had fallen asleep standing up and eyes open, but then he finally made direct eye contact.  
”Look, Major, I think we should - ”  
”Talk?” Kira finished. ”Share some thoughts and feelings, maybe?” She didn't mean it to come out with as sharp a voice as it ended up doing, but just staring the liquid ticket to refreshing dream being turned around right infront of her tested her nerves.

If Bashir minded her tone, he didn't show it. ”Something like that. I haven't been sleeping either. I've tried to distract myself with work, but I know I'm not actually getting anything done well without sleep.”

Kira sighed. ”I know precicely how you feel, doctor.”

The nurses seemed all very happy to herd the over-worked doctor out of the Infirmary and even promised to get someone to cover his day shift if he felt like sleeping in. Bashir fixed his uniform back to decency since it would be inproper for a Starfleet officer to stroll around the station in a such state even if during the night and off-duty, and he and Kira left the Infirmary together. At first they walked around the level aimlessly, while an awkward tension started to grow between them again. Kira chewed on her lower lip and stared on the floor two steps ahead of her and tried to find any words to begin the conversation. It was too late to back out now, and even if she did, the second attempt would be even harder than this one.

By the time they reached the turbolift, several minutes had passed by and the only things they had exchanged were yawns.

”Promenade, second level,” Kira ordered, and the lift yanked to motion. They arrived to the walking level above the promenade, stepped out of the lift and to the railing in sync. They leaned to it, and Kira could swear she was able to hear Bashir swallowing.

”This... This is ridiculous!” she huffed and spun around on her heels to face the doctor.  
”Are we going to have this conversation or not?!” she demanded.  
”Yes! Yes, we are!” Bashir hurried to convince her nodding rapidly. ”I just don't really know where to start, the whole experience was so... so...”  
”Unpleasant?”  
”Yes, that too, but that's not the main reason. It was so...”  
”Weird?” Kira hopefully filled in, and Bashir's face visibly lit up. They had found a common frequency.  
”Yes! Weird, and surreal!”  
”Uncanny,” Kira continued.  
”Somehow dirty, and I'm not talking about ore processing.”  
”Definitely disturbing.”

Both breathed out the tension in a heavy puff of air and turned to watch the mostly empty Promenade below them. Two jogging ensigns passed two Bajoran security officers who were having raktajinos, obviously on their break just outside the security office. At first Kira thought it was an odd hour to be jogging, but when she saw how they greeted the Bajorans, who in turn shared a shy laugh between them when the ensigns were safely out of the earshot, it was obvious this wasn't a coincidence. The little incident she had just witnessed made a small warm bubble fill in her chest, and she had to remind herself once again there was time for that now. Twentysix-seven fighting was finally over.

”Looking into a mirror is difficult,” Kira said, surprising even herself. She saw from the corner of her eye Bashir throwing her a look with his eyebrows up. He didn't make a comment, and Kira felt pressured to continue: ”It's just that I subconciously expect to see her face. I somehow fear my reflection won't look like me – I mean it is me, but then it isn't -” she paused, lost at words and trying to fill that void with obscure hand gestures.

”I think I know what you mean,” Bashir helpfully said. ”I mean, I didn't meet my counterpart like you did, but I did meet... friends, I guess.”  
Kira gave him a sideways glance. ”You guess?”  
”Well, I don't know what to call them! They most certainly are not the people on this side, but they look like us and even have the same names,” Bashir said, shrugging and looking for words he wasn't sure existed in the first place. His mind wandered back to Medschool and practically quoted a whole chapter of patients with emotional trauma, and development of post-traumatic stress.

_Well, at least we're handling this fair and square. We're not in denial._

He had thought in the past that being a professional gave him an upper hand when it came to handling stress and emotional trauma, but having simple knowledge of post-traumatic stress and a neurotransmitter recipe of it didn't benefit him anymore than the knowledge that water is wet benefitted a drowning man. He was finally experiencing something hard and real, just like he had hoped when he had taken the assignment, but handling it was turning out to be more complicated than he had expected.

Bashir had expected life out here to be hard, in fact he had looked forward to it, but nothing could have prepared him to handle things like this. Passing psychological validations and having training on handling difficult emotions were absolutely nothing like actually living through something terrible, and for a moment he was overwhelmed with embarrasment. He felt silly and small, thinking back how he had actually wanted this, hungered for real life, hard and unforgiving, and for wisdom and experience that came with it. Now he felt like he imagined a hedgehog would feel like in the middle of a highway, curled up in a ball with the little heart shivering in its chest.

Even the hard-boiled, tougher-than-bone Kira was going through same emotions, even though Bashir had imagined her being immune to them by now. He wasn't sure if he was comforted or frightened by it.

”Have I ever told you why I became a doctor, Major?” Bashir asked.

Kira raised a brow. ”No, but I have a feeling you will tell me.”

The comment made Bashir smile a bit, and he went on: ”I was a sickly child, and saw a lot of doctors. At first I was a bit afraid of them, and after a while I became terrified.”  
He paused for a moment, eyes unfocused and face unreadable. Kira couldn't recall a single time she had seen the doctor so serious. She blamed the lack of sleep.

”I thought they'd make me sicker if I didn't behave myself,” Bashir continued, ”and there was this one doctor who talked about me like I wasn't even there.”

”How did that appeal to you then?” Kira asked.

Bashir flashed her a smile. ”I wanted to be better, of course,” he answered. ”I wanted to go somewhere where doctors are needed, and care. That's it. I didn't want to be one of those distant, scary people I met.”

Kira frowned. She turned this new information over and over in her mind. In her childhood and most of her adult life, seeing a doctor was a luxury that certainly wasn't granted for mere mine workers like her and her family. After her days in the mines and during her time as a soldier in the Shakaar resistance cell medical care contained herbs, improvised bandages and stitches and a lot of praying. Her mental image of Federation children had been bright and happy, full of smiles, sweets and privileges taken for granted, certainly not sick little boys afraid of their doctors. For a moment, Kira tried to picture Bashir as a scared and sad little child. She couldn't.

”But I think I... forgot that. At some point,” Bashir confessed.

”Oh? And where's this coming from?” Kira asked. There was a sharp edge in her voice, and she didn't bother to soften it. She still remembered the first time she had met doctor Bashir, and she didn't remember it fondly. He had been so excited, and Kira had felt like an exotic animal brought to display.

She had snapped at him. He had been confused.

Bashir gave a shrug and a heavy sigh that turned into a yawn. ”I've had time to think, I suppose,” he said and wiped a tear from the corner of his left eye. ”And when humans have been up for more than two full days, they tend to become a bit melancholic.”  
”Or realistic,” Kira offered, and Bashir threw her an apologetic look with a half-smile.  
”So. Do you care?” she prompted, curious.  
”I think I'm just beginning to,” the doctor answered thoughtfully staring at his hands.  
Somehow the answer gave Kira a deep sense of satisfaction. It wasn't an overconfident and simplistic yes, but it wasn't a disappointing, defeated no either. It was something honest and plain, just a fact that wasn't worth of highlighting, just its own weight and nothing more. ”I think you have started to realize that living somewhere is not the same as visiting or watching from afar,” Kira said. 

”Yes, quite right,” Bashir said, still looking at his hands. Kira followed his gaze and watched him stretching his fingers and picking on his skin. Kira wasn't very familiar with human symptons of anxiety, but something about almost bleeding cuticles was so clearly strained she was sure she was reading him right.

”What is it?” she asked.

Bashir flinched and rubbed his palms together anxiously. ”I just... I can't get the smell of ore and metal off my hands.”

His voice sounded like he was making some shameful confession. Kira didn't understand why, but didn't ask either. She remembered the smell all too well. It was permanently printed in some dark corner of her childhood memories, and the memories had become alive when Terok Nor had breathed it into her face once more.

”Yes, it can be a bit hard to get off,” she said. ”I was a mine worker before I joined the resistance, I should know."  
”Oh...,” Bashir said blankly. Kira raised a brow at him. ”Oh. So... You grew up... in a -”  
”In a mine, basically,” Kira finished for him. She felt an urge to smile and make the situation easier for the doctor, but she supressed it. Let him squirm a bit, let him feel the reality, she decided – not out of malice but necessity. If the human wanted to learn, then let him.

Bashir looked Kira in the eyes. They were both serious, and the eyecontact felt strained with bare honesty. After a few seconds, he dropped his gaze.

”That must have been awful,” he said. He was stating the obvious, and Kira was about to let him know it, but Bashir continued: ”How did you make it?”  
Kira closed her mouth. Despite everything, she didn't have an answer ready. She had been there, mine worker's life had been her past, present and future, her whole world, yet she didn't know how she had managed. How had any of them?

She gave a half-hearted shrug. ”Well...You either survive... Or don't. I wasn't very fond of the latter option.”

Bashir seemed to consider her words carefully, all the while rubbing his palms together. The next words he voiced slowly, like weighting every single one before letting them out: ”I can't imagine what that was like.”  
Kira laughed, startling even herself. Bashir gave her a funny look. She swallowed and gently celared her throat. ”Yes, you can, doctor.”

Bashir's gaze snapped up and to her. He looked confused and a tiny bit afraid, and Kira looked calmly back.  
After the moment passed, Kira's mind felt clear and serene. The matter felt settled, and breathing was suddenly easier. They pushed themselves off the railing in sync once again, and stood up straight, looking for a way to wrap the conversation up. Kira put her hands behind her back.

”That's it, then?” Bashir confirmed awkwardly.  
”I suppose,” Kira said, shrugging. ”At least for now. These things tend to take some time, but we have cracked the shell.”  
Bashir nodded and smiled uncharacteristicly joylessly. ”I suppose so. But nevertheless, this is the first time I'm not exactly looking forward to seeing Garak over lunch.”

Kira squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her temples. ”Uh, don't remind me. It's going to be a while 'til I'll be able to look Commander Sisko in the eye again,” she groaned.

Doctor Bashir chuckled at their shared pain, and turned to leave. Kira considered doing a little round around the Promenade before retiring to bed, but suddenly she remembered something important.

”Doctor!” she called afted Bashir, who stopped and turned back to her.

”You need hot water and scented soap for your hands.”

Bashir seemed to be a bit loss at the words, but after a second a grateful smile rose to his lips.

”Thank you, Major. Good night.”

Kira watched the doctor's back for a moment before turning to the opposite direction. She breathed in the warm air of Deep Space 9 and gazed out of the windows as she walked past them. She couldn't see Bajor, but just knowing it was out there – her Bajor, peaceful, strong Bajor - just a short shuttle-ride away was enough to fill her with comfort.

In the frozen darkness of space, the wormhole flared open to let a lone ship through. The bright light painted everything in blue so pure it made one's heart clench to look at it, and Kira turned her face towards its source to bask in the light of her Gods.  
Somehow she felt that tonight, even without the medicine, she would be granted a good night's sleep and warm friendly dreams.


End file.
